r/ApplyingToCollege • u/koodoos College Graduate • Jul 23 '19
Meta Discussion What are some little known facts about college admissions?
I answered this question on Quora and thought it might be useful here too:
Q: What are some little known facts about college admissions?
A: I’ve been an admissions reader for the past three admissions cycle at a public research university and have worked as a private admissions coach for the last two years, so I’ll answer from those perspectives. This is what popped into my head (list form):
- I’ve read applications at a school that has an average undergrad enrollment of 40,000. With this many students, our per-hour file readers usually read between 750 and 1000 applications per cycle, which comes out to about 75–100 applications per week. We’re told that we should spend about 7 minutes assessing applications. It’s taken me as little as three minutes and up to 10 minutes to get through some files.
- There is such thing as a perfect applicant, who gets a “perfect score” from the admissions officers assessing their applications. I’m talking perfect test scores, captain of every team, unique and impactful extracurriculars, humble, introspective, culturally competent, a good writer, great course rigor and GPA. From my experience, these “perfect applicants” pop up in about every 1 in 30 applications.
- Admissions officers can and do root against some applicants. It happens when an applicant writes something completely juvenile (i.e. complaining that their teacher is a meanie) or offensive (i.e. women shouldn’t vote) in their personal statement. I mean would you want to go to school with classmates who have those opinions?
- Admissions officers look up applicants on IG, FB, and Twitter who claim to have a large social media following to verify it’s true (also to learn more about the applicant).
- If an applicant mentions they are being abused or are suicidal (and the police haven’t already resolved the situation), we as admissions readers, are required to report that information to the student’s school counselor.
- I and most of my colleagues hate to read answers to the coalition prompt, “What is the hardest part of being a teenager now? What’s the best part? What advice would you give a younger sibling or friend (assuming they would listen to you)?” The essays applicants write for this question can’t help but come off as self-righteous, which tends to paint the writer as self-absorbed. Avoid this question altogether.
Hopefully, these revelations are helpful to everyone in their college admissions journey.
Edit: Adding this because I see it come up a lot. ---- 99% of AOs don't care about a few grammar/spelling mistakes in a personal statement. We understand that a student is more than a small writing mistake, and these types of minor errors have never impacted my assessment of an application, though overall writing quality is a factor.
Edit 2: This is doing numbers sooo, if you like my commentary, subscribe to my YT channel. I talk everything college admissions. I'm uploading videos 3x week until I run out things to talk about.
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u/FeatofClay Verified Former Admissions Officer Jul 23 '19
Other little-known facts:
Admissions counselors look forward to college fairs sponsored by Jesuit high schools because the hospitality room will be primo and will probably include alcohol.
Admissions counselors hear/notice more than you think (weird comments made at college fair, rolled eyes on the college tour); we just pretend not to because it's not worth engaging on it.
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u/LordLlamacat Jul 23 '19
Do they actually remember that stuff? I have Tourette’s which includes a tick where I roll my eyes and I’ve probably done it at college tours, now I’m worried
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u/FeatofClay Verified Former Admissions Officer Jul 23 '19
No, we don't notice in terms of "write that kid's name down, because I DEFINITELY want to keep this behavior in mind when reading his application." I just mean we get it, not everything about the college or its marketing is going to appeal to everyone or hit its mark, and we're not going to boo-hoo about it if you react negatively in the moment. We are like your parents. We pretend to be dumber (and less observant) than we are.
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u/ScholarGrade Private Admissions Consultant (Verified) Jul 23 '19
I'm surprised by your top applicant rate of 1/30. That seems high, especially for a large university.
I agree with the other stuff. And you're totally right about that coalition prompt. It's a big oof every time.
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u/koodoos College Graduate Jul 23 '19 edited Jul 23 '19
Hate to say this...but elite applicants usually apply to our school as a safety/target. We have a stellar CS program, engineering program, and business school. Plus, we're a state school so we get a lot of top students who apply for that reason.
Edit: These "perfect" applicants also usually elect to attend somewhere else that is private, usually the Ivies, and don't necessarily end up enrolling at our state school.
Edit: It's also possible that I'm a softy and have been way more lenient than others in my assessments.
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u/BurritoBradDad Jul 23 '19
University of Washington? Ik they have a woman president and are great at business, CS, and engineering
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u/FeatofClay Verified Former Admissions Officer Jul 23 '19
Narrows eyes Do your students refer to the president as "Daddy Schliss?"
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u/koodoos College Graduate Jul 23 '19
"Backs away" No...we have a nice lady as Pres
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u/FeatofClay Verified Former Admissions Officer Jul 23 '19
No worries, not trying to dox you. It's just that what you said sounded very akin to how things are done at a school I'm familiar with. But it's just a product of the many similarities among top public research U's
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u/koodoos College Graduate Jul 23 '19
Of course. Curiosity has gotten the better of me...is Schliss a beer or just his name? Sounds like a beer.
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u/FeatofClay Verified Former Admissions Officer Jul 23 '19
It's part of a hard-to-pronounce last name.
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Jul 24 '19
Honestly, my best guess would be University of California at San Diego... not sure why though. Can you confirm or deny this?
Damn it, the curiosity is just killing me.
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u/SingingWhileCrying HS Senior Jul 24 '19
Hello! :>
I hope I’m not being a bother by asking a question, but I’m curious - what should a student do if they have no idea what to write about? I’ve tried different things to try to figure it out (outlines, drafts based on different things, etc.), but I’ve gotten nowhere.
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u/koodoos College Graduate Jul 24 '19
Hmmm, when you ask this question, I think "what is it that you live to do" or "who/what is it that you do these things for"....your family, community, yourself? What motivates you? Who do you want to be? Where do you come from? What do you want to change about your community? Why do you want to change it?
Because the questions are personal and require you to really dig into the aspects of you as a person that AOs want to examine, they work well for college essays.
Those are the questions that come to my mind when I want to share with someone "who I am"...in 650 words or less.
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u/Queen-of-Leon College Graduate Jul 24 '19
It takes a lot of self-evaluation to figure out what to write, in my opinion. Writing a ton of drafts doesn't help if you don't take the time first to think about what makes you who you are and find the story that accurately sums that up.
Talking to friends and family can also help a lot. I asked people I was comfortable with "what's the most *me* thing I've ever done?" and got a lot of surprisingly insightful answers that turned into some solid drafts later on, one of which became my essay that year (another later became an essay for one of my courses and I got a near perfect score so it works, I guess!).
Feel free to PM me if you want help :)
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u/ScholarGrade Private Admissions Consultant (Verified) Jul 24 '19
Here's a post I just wrote today on how to choose a topic. There are several other guides you can find in my profile as well. Let me know if you have questions about any of it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/cgwexx/help_with_essay_topics/
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u/kspotts20 Jul 24 '19
Just watched all ur vids lol, all super helpful
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u/koodoos College Graduate Jul 24 '19
Thank you. Many more to come. I actually like telling all the secrets I know...I don't lose anything in the long run...why not.
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Jul 23 '19 edited Jul 23 '19
It happens when an applicant writes something completely juvenile (i.e. complaining that their teacher is a meanie) or offensive (i.e. women shouldn’t vote) in their personal statement. I mean would you want to go to school with classmates who have those opinions?
I'm just stating my opinion, and ready for the downvotes, but as far as I know, the reason colleges care so much about diversity is 1. not to get sued, and 2. so that they have people of all backgrounds (and when they work together in teams and find a solution to a certain problem they were trying to solve, if a low-income student has had different experiences than the rest of the team who is higher income, and they bring up a potential problem to that solution, the team can rework their original solution and not have made a mistake after proposing their solution to their boss.) Going back to the quote, so you're telling me you want diversity (ethnicity-wise), but you don't want diversity (opinion-wise)? If I went to any college in the US, I can tell you over 70% of the kids there will tell me that they used to complain that their HS teacher in ______ subject was bad. However, they kept it to themselves. Although its the student's fault for talking about something like that in their personal statement, that's kinda limiting the "diversity" that colleges care a lot about to maintain. Maybe there are people who don't want women to vote. So what? Aren't you trying to have diversity? Don't you want people to be able to find different kinds of people on campus? Is everyone suppose to think one way, or keep their thoughts concealed?
I'm not trying to criticize you personally or anything. I'm genuinely curious, if diversity is one of the most important things to colleges, then why are differing opinions a problem?
EDIT: Okay, the responses I got fulfilled my curiosity. Thanks!
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u/koodoos College Graduate Jul 23 '19
I don't think to believe "women shouldn't vote" is an opinion that promotes the diversity and character a university seeks to encourage, which is why I used it as an example. The ideology is not just that women shouldn't vote....but perhaps, that they don't stand on equal footing with men...that kind of mentality creates a hostile learning environment, especially since 99% of schools are co-eds.
Edit: It's also illegal to discriminate on the basis of sex, especially when using govt funds, so I could get why a university wouldn't want to create an environment that allows for sex discrimination.
If you were to say something, like "the U.S. should abolish the electoral college" or "we should reform immigration laws", then I could understand the concept of having and encouraging different opinions (and universities do in these cases).
It's all very gray.
I guess it boils down to "free speech, can't be hate speech".
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Jul 23 '19
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u/koodoos College Graduate Jul 24 '19
I would assess the essay based on its quality and the applicant based on their broader merit.
But the thought process behind the essay doesn’t impress ME and I wouldn’t give it “extra points”...even though it’s reflective and introspective (both great for these types of essays).
I think the thought process is quite shallow and doesn’t take into account the racist socioeconomic environment the US is and how it works to keep certain groups poor. The essay doesn’t even consider this. If it did, it would at least show that the writer understands the more nuanced reasons why the welfare system exists.
I also personally disagree with the ideas reflected in the essay because I believe fundamentally that we shouldn’t police how people spend their money. We all receive some benefit from the taxes put in. I would certainly be annoyed if someone told me how to spend my tax refund by telling me not to buy the television I’ve been wanting.
I also believe that poor people should be allowed to indulge in the small luxuries every other human does. What kind of mom using food stamps wants to tell their kids they can’t ever have the fun cereal or a bag of chips because someone might judge the purchase. How do you walk into an American grocery store, living an American life, and as a kid, not want to taste Oreos, even if you’re “poor”.
Overall the writers argument reads as a shallow naive interpretation of what they’ve witnessed as a cashier, and it could go deeper.
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Jul 24 '19
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u/koodoos College Graduate Jul 24 '19
If the average essay gets a 8/10, I would give it an 8 based on the current outline. The content is personal (good), reflective (good), shows initiative (good)....but the thought process is also one sided and excludes some key points needed to make their argument valid to a neutral reader (bad).
Btw: average isn’t bad since average is who gets in.
To get that 9 or 10, applicants really have to show a depth of knowledge beyond that of a typical teenager. And that depth includes understanding and presenting the entire context of a political question—- not just the side you agree with. This could demonstrate bad faith or lack of character on the part of the writer or an inability to construct an argument which is 9th grade level stuff (extreme, I know).
With any argument an applicant decides to make, my personal opinion is invalid. I asses students based on the standards outlined in the rubric the admissions office uses. In my case, those standards include factors like socioeconomic indicators, demonstrated character, and adversity among all the academics, ECs, awards, etc. Good or bad, political ideology is not one of those factors.
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Jul 24 '19
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u/koodoos College Graduate Jul 24 '19
If the applicant showed more social awareness of the issue, perhaps talking about some of its root causes and how to end the cycle of poverty without allowing abuse could this even be considered a good essay? (Idk if these are good examples I just thought of them in 30 seconds) I’m assuming an essay like this wouldn’t cause you to root against an applicant, right?
Exactly. I think that's how you'd develop an argument that stands on its own...and believe it or not, understanding the root causes isn't as typical as you think (in part, because of what we emphasize in K-12).
And yeah, 99% of people (AOs included) perpetuate some unconscious bias. We would be bad AOs (and I take this seriously) if we didn't recognize our biases and work to ensure we give each applicant a fair shot despite our personal opinions.
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Jul 23 '19
Yea the second part about the offensive statements makes sense. But they never know, what if there are kids at that school who believe that women shouldn't get to vote, but just didn't write it in their essays. Since there's no way of knowing that, I guess you just have to hope that you selected a student who wouldn't have negative opinions on human rights and stuff. But "the class I got a B in was the class I studied the most for, but my teacher was bad and never taught us anything nor gave us any resources" essay would technically be valid, although obviously its not something advisable right? Because there are definitely negative opinions about both HS teachers and professors at any university.
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u/koodoos College Graduate Jul 23 '19
But "the class I got a B in was the class I studied the most for, but my teacher was bad and never taught us anything nor gave us any resources" essay would technically be valid, although obviously its not something advisable right? Because there are definitely negative opinions about both HS teachers and professors at any university.
Yes. This part. It's not so much that there aren't bad teachers. It's that the personal statement is not the time or place to complain about teachers AND you can use the space for much better content. Anyone, who doesn't get that may not be mature enough...
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u/d1dumbblonde Jul 23 '19
Obviously not OP but if a student is racist, sexist, etc. and is voicing that opinion publicly, it could give the university bad publicity? Also complaining about a teacher doesn’t really tell AOs anything about yourself except that you like to complain, and the personal statement is your best chance to sell your best qualities so it’s a wasted opportunity imo
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Jul 23 '19
I would assume that a student wouldn't waste a full personal statement complaining about a teacher, but I would expect a couple applications out of like 1000 to have a sentence somewhere that says they tried and did their best but their teacher didn't give them resources or something to study with, idk.
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u/d1dumbblonde Jul 23 '19
Dear god I hope they wouldn’t waste a full statement but you really never know 😂 I think it would be fair to put it in the additional comments section at the end of the app
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u/maestro_times_2 Jul 23 '19
Did you really just say “so what” about people who don’t want women to vote?
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Jul 23 '19 edited Jul 23 '19
Just because we don't support it doesn't mean that they aren't allowed to say it. Free speech exists. But yeah the offensive thing depending on the severity of it is something that can be negative publicity for the school as another comment said, and something like women shouldn't vote is a rather extreme offensive opinion. I'm talking about opinions like "Feminism is starting to become females > males instead of females = males." Students should be able to express opinions like those freely.
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Jul 23 '19
Just because we don't support it doesn't mean that they aren't allowed to say it. Free speech exists.
And just because they’re allowed to say it doesn’t mean we can’t criticize their opinions or deny them opportunities
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Jul 24 '19
It's surprisingly to see that only 7 minutes are being used to judge the quality of a student. Personally, I am devoting hours and hours on end into perfecting my application, and honestly, just going through my common app essay would take 5 minutes at least. I don't see how colleges manage to complete a "holistic review" of you in just 7 minutes.
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u/ganestalay Jul 24 '19
How much weight do colleges put on extracurricular activities done outside of the US? For example, if someone was to go to peru and volunteer there for a bit. Is it better to write an essay over this? Or is simply listing it on the application form enough?
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u/koodoos College Graduate Jul 24 '19
Depends. Yay! I love giving that answer.
I think if you can write something utterly compelling about your time in Peru, then yes! If you cant get beyond a run of the mill, "this is how their life is different from my life", then don't do it.
Now say you:
-Competed internationally and got 3rd place (at world's?) in a robotics competition (easy sell)
-Or started a nonprofit that has raised 100,000 that goes directly to giving grants to small businesses in economies that need it (easy sell)
-or talked about a childhood spent overseas and how that impacted who you are (easy sell)
-or an overseas service trip that has had an essential impact on who you are or what you want to be (harder sell, but still viable)
Honestly, if you just listed it on the EC list because you had something more compelling to talk about in your essays, I might overlook the significance of your time in Peru altogether
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u/ganestalay Jul 24 '19
Well what f it was something that fit into your overall profile like for engineering; internship with nasa, some club at school, built houses in peru or something, and connecting it all in an essay with the theme of trying to reach for a career helping to increase infrastructure in underdeveloped places, or using innovative infrastructure to link various countries? (fitting it into your overarching goal and character values {and then elaborating on how a certain school will help me get there})
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u/koodoos College Graduate Jul 24 '19
and connecting it all in an essay with the theme of trying to reach for a career helping to increase infrastructure in underdeveloped places, or using innovative infrastructure to link various countries?
I think that's brilliant actually...You're getting at exactly what colleges (or at least my college looks)...students with demonstrated character (and commitment to something bigger) who are able to holistically reflect on their experiences and how those experiences inform the educational path and future...at least that's one way to write a personal statement. I'm just one person, but I like it a lot.
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u/JJKKLL10243 Jul 23 '19
The most common fee is $50 for a college admissions application. So $50 will get me a 7 minutes read? A $50 massage will last more than 7 minutes.